| name | smoke-test |
| description | Project-local mempal smoke test. Use after installing, restarting, merging, or changing mempal to verify installed CLI, daemon singleton/current binary, REST/MCP availability, read-only memory surfaces, reversible CLI/MCP CRUD, cleanup, and resource safety without leaking drawer content or starting duplicate daemons. |
mempal Manual Smoke Test
Use this project-local skill when validating the installed mempal binary and live daemon after a merge, install, restart, MCP reconnect, or production-like debugging session.
Keep this file as the high-level runbook. Load references only when the current task needs manual detail:
references/preflight-and-readonly-cli.md — preflight, singleton/holder checks, read-only CLI probe matrix, and structure-only capture harness.references/reversible-crud.md — reversible CLI and MCP memory CRUD, exact-created-ID cleanup authority, and MCP stdio lifecycle.references/rest-resource-and-done.md — REST checks, dangerous/non-default surfaces, memory/I/O guardrails, and done criteria.scripts/full_smoke.py — preferred automated full smoke runner; execute it instead of reimplementing the matrix when broad coverage is requested.../../docs/conformance-matrix.md — feature-preservation conformance matrix; scripts/full_smoke.py emits aggregate pass/fail/skipped status for its feature groups under the final JSON conformance key.
Safety rules
- Keep diagnostics aggregate-only. Do not print raw drawer content, prompts, model responses, raw process command lines, environment variables, connection strings, URLs, Authorization headers, bearer tokens, API keys, passwords,
drawer_content, snippets, previews, or prompt-like arguments.
- Use the installed binary (
command -v mempal, mempal --version) and the live user daemon. Do not use cargo run for smoke unless debugging source changes.
- Maintain singleton ownership: prefer the existing
mempal-daemon.service; verify one current /usr/local/bin/mempal daemon; do not start unmanaged long-lived REST/MCP servers. The checked-in scripts/full_smoke.py may start short-lived MCP stdio children because it owns shutdown/cleanup.
- Before classifying lock failures, inspect DB holders with aggregate-only daemon status and report roles/counts/PIDs only.
- For write smoke, clean up only exact IDs returned as
created_drawer_ids by that same smoke run. Never delete IDs discovered through search/read results.
- If there is genuinely useful non-secret context to preserve, one real memory write is allowed instead of purely synthetic content. Keep it concise, typed, and project-scoped.
Preferred automated full smoke
Run from repo root:
python3 skills/smoke-test/scripts/full_smoke.py > /tmp/mempal-skill-full-smoke.log
The runner prints one aggregate JSON object and avoids raw memory content. It covers installed CLI identity/status, read-only surfaces, reversible CLI CRUD, short-lived MCP read/CRUD, cleanup, and coarse I/O telemetry.
It also reports feature-preservation conformance by group according to docs/conformance-matrix.md.
If it exits nonzero or times out, parse only the final JSON summary:
python3 - <<'PY'
import json, pathlib
p = pathlib.Path('/tmp/mempal-skill-full-smoke.log')
lines = [line for line in p.read_text(errors='replace').splitlines() if line.strip()]
data = json.loads(lines[-1]) if lines else {}
print({
'overall_ok': data.get('overall_ok'),
'failures': data.get('failures'),
'cleanup': data.get('cleanup'),
'created_counts': data.get('created_counts'),
'conformance': data.get('conformance', {}).get('summary'),
'group_count': len(data.get('groups', {})),
})
for name, info in (data.get('groups') or {}).items():
if isinstance(info, dict) and not info.get('ok'):
print(name, {k: v for k, v in info.items() if k not in {'content', 'text', 'preview', 'statement', 'narrative'}})
PY
Do not paste raw command stdout/stderr from the smoke log into chat.
Minimal preflight
Use this before any write smoke or full smoke:
git status --short --branch --untracked-files=all
command -v mempal
mempal --version
systemctl --user is-active mempal-daemon.service || true
systemctl --user show mempal-daemon.service -p MainPID -p ActiveState -p SubState --value || true
mempal daemon status > /tmp/mempal-daemon-status-smoke.txt
Summarize only: installed version/path, daemon active state/PID, daemon executable current vs deleted, live daemon count, extra holders/stale MCP/orphans, RSS/PSS/private dirty/anonymous, queue counts, search active, and REST health class. For field-level details, load references/preflight-and-readonly-cli.md.
Coverage target
Classify each group as pass, fail, or skipped_<reason>:
| Group | Required coverage |
|---|
| Runtime | installed binary, daemon singleton, daemon binary consistency (exe vs installed), DB holders, RSS/resource summary |
| Read-only CLI | status/stats/doctor (schema/embedding health)/search/context/timeline/tail/pinned/knowledge/card/repair/pattern/skill shapes where supported |
| Reversible CLI CRUD | create, search/read/context, update via --supersedes, pin/unpin, exact-ID delete, post-delete verification |
| REST | doctor/route availability, degraded warning categories if any |
| MCP read-only | status/search/context/pinned/timeline/doctor plus optional skill/brief/taxonomy tools exposed by the client |
| Reversible MCP CRUD | create, read/search/context, update, exact-ID delete, post-delete verification |
| Cleanup/resource | no extra REST/MCP holders, created IDs cleaned, daemon PID stable or restart classified, I/O/RSS summarized |
Never downgrade a failed CRUD path to pass because another surface worked. Report CLI and MCP CRUD separately.
Manual smoke pointers
- For read-only CLI probes and shape-only output handling, load
references/preflight-and-readonly-cli.md.
- For CLI/MCP write/update/delete details, load
references/reversible-crud.md.
- For REST, memory growth, dangerous surfaces, and final checklist, load
references/rest-resource-and-done.md.
Verification checklist
